September 21, 2020 |
Victoria Beckham had a good lockdown. She loved being in the countryside with her family, wearing the same vintage jeans and simple T-shirt every day. As restrictions eased, she shuttled between her home in the Cotswolds and her studio in Hammersmith and was excited to get back into a pair of heels. “I do not want to wear a flat shoe right now,” she said – teetering on pair of sky-high platforms under her dark denim flares.
Covid brought a reckoning, and like so many in the London fashion community, VB has seized the opportunity to reset her business. “Working on this collection reminded me why I fell in love with the fashion industry in the first place,” she said. “I have found the limitations quite liberating, the fact that we had to scale back, we had to be very strategic about everything.” She spoke during appointments at the Victoria Miro gallery – her temporary home for the day. Beckham talked through her collection with editors in one part of the space and shot her collection video in another. Designer, celebrity, entrepreneur makeup mogul, VB is the ultimate muti-tasking, multi-hyphenate. Her scaled back collection is smaller than usual but highly focused and from now on she’ll only show two collections a year as opposed to four.
“I know my customer. I know what she wants,” says Beckham who focused on easy tailoring and spaghetti strap jersey dresses, plenty of denim and a more eclectic approach to styling. Her wide, fluid trousers pooled about the feet, “it looks like the model’s walking through puddles of fabric,” explained the designer who added, “I still want a dream I still want the element of drama. That’s why we do fashion we don’t want anything to be boring.”
The words “easy” and “eclectic” came up more than once and there was a sense the designer was freeing herself from the minimalism of seasons past. “I call this petrol station chic,” she says, picking up a leopard print gilet layered over a trench dress in the same fabric. “For me, it’s always about creating clothes that are wearable but I still do want to dream. Things do have to be elevated and feel special. There’s so much stuff out there. For me, it’s about my customer feeling special and feeling empowered and feeling like the best version of herself.” Sounds of filming filtered through from the next room as her models catwalked through the galleries for the camera. Low key? It looks good on VB.
Photography by Andrew Vowles.
